A thought by Kyle Idleman (2014-03-01)
from his book, AHA: The God Moment That Changes Everything (p. 85). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition.
(Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
And we all know that is the
truth. It is so hard to be brutally honest with ourselves isn’t it?
Kyle in this book is using
the story of the Prodigal Son as the biblical basis for his thoughts. Maybe you remember the story of this young
son who came to his father and asked him to give him his inheritance before
time and he then went out and blew it all.
Finely he finds himself in a pigpen feeding pigs and he says, “How many
of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to
death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have
sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your
son; make me like one of your hired servants.” (Luke 15: 17– 19)
Kyle says, “He was honest
with himself about what he deserved. That kind of honesty is difficult. The
hardest person in the world to be honest with is the person in the mirror…”
He goes on, “Like the wife
who wakes up to her critical spirit but refuses to say, ‘I have been wrong to
be so negative. I know my husband needs my encouragement and support, but I’ve just
complained and criticized.’ Like the
husband who realizes his sexual sin but refuses to say, ‘My pornography problem
has created a wedge in my marriage and has hardened my heart toward my wife.’”
Kyle goes on, “No one wants
to say those things. No one wants to look in the mirror and admit: I have
chosen to sit on a couch watching Sports Center over being a spiritual leader
in my home. I go shopping and spend money we don’t have to make me feel better
about the things in my life that I can’t control. I haven’t had real faith in
years. I’m pretending to be someone I’m not to impress the people around me,
but the truth is I’m a hypocrite.”
He then says, “The Bible
calls the moment when we have a moment of brutal honesty and we tell ourselves
the truth— even when it’s not what we want to hear— confession. AHA doesn’t
happen without it. There are a number of ways the word confession can be
understood and defined, but here’s one definition of confession: to agree. You
come to a place where you stop disagreeing with truth and you honestly say, ‘Here
I am.’”
So what is you need to be
brutally honest about to yourself and to God?
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